There is well known a vehicle control apparatus that executes gear shifting in an automatic transmission by using information received from an external device. A vehicle control apparatus disclosed in JP-H11-315734A is an example of this type of control apparatus. This document discloses that a vehicle running environment is assumed based on the information received from the external device and then a shifting characteristic suitable for the running environment is set, so that the gear shifting is executed in accordance with the shifting characteristic in the automatic transmission.